Certain Key-Individuals involved with the development of D3, have shown complete lack of must-know knowledge about D2LOD, it's predecessor. When key-individuals on the developer team don't know the predecessor game (D2LOD) inside-out, they are simply not qualified to make decisions on creating a successor. It has become undeniably evident, that grave lack of D2LOD knowledge, perverse disrespect to the Roots of the Diablo Franchise (D1/D2LOD), as well as ignorance and flamboyant arrogance, have nearly destroyed the once greatest ARPG IP known in the gaming world. It is fundamentally important that people that make fundamental decisions on D4 MUST have not only deep knowledge of D2LOD, but must also have a deep passion for D2LOD, and Diablo as a whole.

It is my opinion that D3 is from the very beginning a game that was designed to be "retaining" the leaving WOW playerbase at the time (around 2012). It was a betrayal of the tens of millions of people that LOVE Diablo (D1 and especially D2LOD). D3, rather than be a deeper and bigger successor to the beloved D2LOD, was instead dumbed down, simplified, and right out robbed of established and signature features. Fundamental decisions have been made by unqualified people to ensure the game would be easily portable to the console market, rather than be the true successor to D2-LOD for its Home-Market, the PC.

"High-Level"-Overview - What D4 NEEDS:

D1&D2 Style Music (Composed by Matt Uelmen)

D1&D2 Style Atmosphere and Mood. Plausible Biblical Dark Gothic Medieval World that is being invaded by the forces of Hell. We the mortal-heroes embark on a unlikely to succeed journey, in an attempt to wander a medieval world that is being engulfed in evil misery, flames, and is about to break apart and be swallowed into the infernal pits of hell. Maybe, just maybe, we the foolish heroes reach the end of our dangerous and long journey where the Devil Himself awaits our misery so he can absorb our soul and turn our carcass into another hellish creature that will wander the world in an attempt to spread more evil. Maybe, just maybe, we dare to attempt to slay the Mortal-Incarnation of the Devil Himself, and save the Mortal World from destruction.

Signature and Iconic Isometric-View

Lore with a focus on strong medieval-biblical mood-setting, rather than shoving poor story-writing and story-telling down our throats with weird Butterflies and borderline retarded villains etc.

Surface Maps are not only tile-based and procedural generated, but also wide-open with castle ruins, bridges, creeks, vegetation, Lore-structures, quest-structures, etc. Filled with Monster packs, unique mini-bosses, Champions, Elites, Super-Elites etc. Some Monsters have dangerous auras, and those monsters can by pure chance and randomness be in the proximity of a trash pack, and thus turn that trash pack into a highly dangerous encounter. Dynamic situations can arise where even two or three elite-packs mingle in a huge group of trash mobs, turning it into a death-trap or slaughter-fest depending on if the player is underleveled and under-geared or properly leveled and properly geared due to magic finding and character building.

Fully Randomized Big Area Maps (Procedural Tile-Based Map Generation utilizing hundreds or even thousands of small-size tiles per map) that create a true mesh of maps that give a sense of "world". Between acts there should be big and elaborated "hub towns". That world, is also full of dungeons, caves, abandoned castle ruins, abandoned temples, crumbling remains from the crusades, crypts, crumbling remains of various architectural styles according to the cultures that lived there (Medieval Europe, Mystic Persia, The Amazon, Celtic culture, Asian or East-Indian cultures etc.)

D2-LOD Style Itemization (Normal/Ethereal/Magic/Rare/Set/Unique/Runeword/Charms Items etc. and new stuff added on top) D2LOD itemization cleaned up a bit, and pushed to the next level.

Huge amount of Quest-Lines that offer visual as well as real character-development perks. Many quests are tied to the story, and many quests are optional. Some quests must have highly desirable rewards, where as other quests can offer only small rewards.

Main Time-Sink in D4 must be Questing, and killing countless monsters and leveling up in the process, which also results in long-term Loot-Hunt. All of these activities must be meshed together. Questing must be tied to character development. Character Development must consist of Leveling up, developing Skill Trees, Questing for world-advancement and highly desirable character perks, as well as Loot hunt that rounds off our own character builds and optimizes them.

Leveling 1-99 where the final levels require a lot of time-investment and applying Game knowledge. Leveling 85-99 should be "icing on the cake" and a status symbol. It should offer more skill-points we can spend, but should not "make or break" a build. In D2, a character with a level of 85 is not much much weaker than a level 95 etc, yet it still gives a clear incentive to keep grinding out those last levels and receive the associated power with investing the time.

50% or more of the Character Power comes from Character Level and Skill Tree Choices

50% or less of the Character Power comes from a huge variety of gear choices that further improve the chosen Skills from the Skill Trees.

6-8 Players

Magic Find as an affix MUST come back - No Brainer

ALL Content balanced for Solo AND Team Play

Optional Item-for-Item Trading

Optional Ranked "Wild-West" Open World PVP with Permanent Opt-Out (collect heads/hearts/ears for display in hideout)

POE Style listening to Long-Term Core-Diablo Veterans, as well as immediately acting upon the feedback that comes from the Core-Diablo Veterans

100% Optional NON-Pay-To-Win Micro-Transactions for Cosmetic In-Game perks like Transmogs (Enable Everyone to set an option in the settings to view the Real Visuals of other players' gear)

Core DIABLO Pillars:

Deep Long-Term Character Development & Leveling (especially in the final 10 character levels - aka 90-99)

Deep and interesting Itemization & Long-Term-Loot-Hunt

Dark Gothic Medieval Hopeless Mood/Setting/Music/World

Visceral, Engaging, and satisfying Combat and World-Engagement

Endless Replayability trough Random World generation, Long-term Loothunt (aka "I have yet to find items X, Y, Z to perfection my build") and huge amount of Lore-Rooted Epic Quest-Lines as well as optional Item-For-Item Trading and PVP and other time-sinks.

*Many additional Quest-Lines must be dispersed throughout the world that have nothing to do with the game lore itself, but rather are tied to their own lore and areas within the world or characters in the game world. Example: you stumble upon temple ruins in some act and area map, and you stumble upon a writing on a wall in that temple, and the writing reveals an old myth from the civilization that once lived there, and you can accept and embark on a journey to complete that quest-line, or you just keep going with the normal Game-Lore quest lines for now, and choose to come back later to complete this optional Quest-Line at a later time.

Absolute NO-GO for D4:

NO Cooldowns (Ridiculous spells that deal 10'000x your regular damage must NOT exist to begin with)

NO Developer dictated Builds and gear designed by the devs to be mandatory for the Developer-Dicated-Builds etc. (aka NO D3-Itemization BS)

NO Endless Difficulty where we never get to finally feel powerful after months of XP grinding, questing, and Loot-Grinding, and only find out that we can now increase the difficulty to feel weak again (D3 sucks in this regard).

NO Timers and "Timed Runs" aka "Greater Rifts". Abolish "Greater Rifts" and you solve two massive issues in one shot (Endless Difficulty and Timed Content)

NO Progress Globes that are more Action than "RPG". Monster or Boss Kill = XP Progress

NO Health Globes that are more Action than "RPG". Our health regenerates by means of specific Gear Affixes, Character Skill Tree Choices, and good old Health Potion (a potion that slowly regenerates over time, and killing monsters accelerates the potion recovery).

NO Skill "Generators" and "Spenders" like in D3. Instead we want just normal D2-Like Skills that have a varying mana costs. End-Game characters can become so powerful that they require less use of the Mana Potion. Mana regeneration speed is based on character level, specific gear affixes, skill tree choices, as well as auras that come from gear or skills

NO Disney-Type Villains that have mental abilities of 3-year-olds (D3's Asmodan and all others...)

NO Forced Raiding, where people are forced to play with others to experience various game-content. ALL regular world content must be available to solo as well as multiplayer parties.

NO D3-Type static and small-world crap where it takes only 10 seconds to get from one end of the map to the other

NO Loot-Welfare aka D3's Loot failure where items rain from the sky like candy, and stupid "NPCs" like "Kadala" exist that just sell you gear.

NO stupid "Kanai's" Cube recipes to create items that should only be obtainable by adventuring in the world and killing dangerous monsters like Bosses and Elite/Unique monsters. Crafting can and MUST exist, but the items that can be crafted must be exclusive to crafting. Items that drop, must exclusively come from world drops. (no more "bloodsharting" or "crafting" of BIS items just because you could not find it yet)

NO Chat-Window that fades in and out during fierce combat. (Chat Window should ONLY be active when the user presses Enter. Messages from others can obviously appear in the chat area at all times)

NO Ridiculous HUGE "Mini"-Map that steals huge amounts of screen "real-estate". Allow us to modify the minimap size, and even remove it entirely if we want to.

NO Items that make or break a particular PLAYER-CREATED build. Instead, Items MUST round-off and optimize PLAYER-CREATED Builds. Items can be designed like huge Quality-Of-Life improvements, but can NOT ever be mandatory like Sets in D3 or items with "Legendary Affixes" because those items just become mandatory as well.

Remember: 50% or MORE of our character power MUST come from our own Skill-Tree Builds, and items are ONLY responsible for 50% or LESS of our character power. Items must round-off, optimize, and improve our Already powerful builds. This ensures that no item is mandatory, and many constellations could potentially work for a particular build. Will "optimal-cookie-cutter-builds" exist? Absolutely, but those players that could not level-up high enough and could not find the items needed for "Cookie-Cutting", will still be able to play end-game-difficulty just fine even with "average" or "Random-Entry-Level" gear.

REMEMBER: D2 itemization just needs a silk-gloved light clean-up and then needs to be pushed to the next level in order to be OP-Crazy-Good and allow D4 to reclaim the Isometric ARPG Crown

Could people already stop with this mobile BS? Even if it was funny on the first time, that first time came and went long ago.

If you want to keep venting your fustration about this D:I fiasco (which is just fine), do it in the proper threads. This thread however is about discussing Diablo 4, mobile has nothing to do with it.

Except it does because there is no D4? You might as well start a thread discussing about the future of a fully virtual diablo world game. Or a new type of diablo inspired aircraft. Maybe a diablo fast food chain. The new train system: The Nephalem Express.

Could people already stop with this mobile BS? Even if it was funny on the first time, that first time came and went long ago.

If you want to keep venting your fustration about this D:I fiasco (which is just fine), do it in the proper threads. This thread however is about discussing Diablo 4, mobile has nothing to do with it.

Except it does because there is no D4? You might as well start a thread discussing about the future of a fully virtual diablo world game. Or a new type of diablo inspired aircraft. Maybe a diablo fast food chain. The new train system: The Nephalem Express.

Just because they haven't announced it yet, doesn't mean they're not working on it.

Except it does because there is no D4? You might as well start a thread discussing about the future of a fully virtual diablo world game. Or a new type of diablo inspired aircraft. Maybe a diablo fast food chain. The new train system: The Nephalem Express.

Just because they haven't announced it yet, doesn't mean they're not working on it.

Except they have not confirmed they're working on it, all evidence points to them not working on it, they have all but said they are not working on it. There is literally zero evidence that it's in the works beyond the conceptual stage.

Except it does because there is no D4? You might as well start a thread discussing about the future of a fully virtual diablo world game. Or a new type of diablo inspired aircraft. Maybe a diablo fast food chain. The new train system: The Nephalem Express.

What makes you think there's no D4? If you look at Blizzard's job postings, they're still hiring people for an unannounced Diablo project. Pay attention now: unannounced Diablo project. There is something major being worked on and it's not D:I.

Except it does because there is no D4? You might as well start a thread discussing about the future of a fully virtual diablo world game. Or a new type of diablo inspired aircraft. Maybe a diablo fast food chain. The new train system: The Nephalem Express.

What makes you think there's no D4? If you look at Blizzard's job postings, they're still hiring people for an unannounced Diablo project. Pay attention now: unannounced Diablo project. There is something major being worked on and it's not D:I.

The unannounced project has been listed before they even posted anything about Diablo Immortal and even that still isn't too close to a release date. The job postings hasn't even been filled out, so even if it was about D4, it's not even past the conceptual stage. The game hasn't even begun development.

Proof of this?

They're still looking for environment artists, character artists, concept artists, lighting artists, I think you get the picture. The game doesn't exist at this point in time. You're talking 8 years away from a release date from the moment they actually fill those positions. Those positions haven't been filled in months which means they aren't making too big of a push to begin hiring for them at this point in time.

You're literally speculating about a game that hasn't even touched development and may never even be developed. So many projects get listings and never make it past the conceptual stage. Ghost, Titan, etc.

So how about you tell me more about this mythical game and it's magical release date. I'll take a moment to enter magical christmas land with you. I'll even hold your hand for a bit to get into the spirit of it.

I know this is screaming at the wall, but just stop. D4 still hasn't been announced and people have been hyping it for years. There's no way the game is going to live up to what people already desperately want already. We're going to get D3's hate and rage all over again.

I know this is screaming at the wall, but just stop. D4 still hasn't been announced and people have been hyping it for years. There's no way the game is going to live up to what people already desperately want already. We're going to get D3's hate and rage all over again.

In the five stages of grief there seem to be people perpetually in the denial stage. I wonder how many years must go by before they reach anger?